58 GERMINATION.CA NOVEMBER 2017 WORLD STATUS Oats, camelina and maize make advancements, while Bihar moves to revamp its seed industry. AUSTRALIA A DWARF PLANT type, a new oat variety called Kowari, has been developed by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), a division of Primary Industries and Regions SA, as part of the National Oat Breeding Program. For the past two decades, the Australian National Oat Breeding Program, based at SARDI, has delivered new varieties which offer pro- cessors and manufacturers high-quality, nutri- tious and tasty milling oats to meet consumer needs and open new markets. It has produced the majority of oat varieties currently used by Australian growers, accounting for up to 85 per cent of southeast Australian milling oats and up to 75 per cent of Australian export hay varieties. Kowari produces increased levels of beta glucan, which helps to reduce blood cholesterol re-absorption. Furthermore, its high yield- ing potential and disease resistance promises to make it attractive to growers, according to SARDI. The project was partly funded by Heritage Seeds. “At Heritage Seeds, our goal is to bring new varieties to market which bring real benefits to growers — increasing their productivity and profitability — and we feel we have that in Kowari,” said Steve Amery, company portfolio manager. “Good quantities of planting seed will be available Australia-wide in 2018. The addition of Kowari further enhances our milling oat/hay offering to the market.” INDIA NITISH KUMAR, chief minister for the Indian state of Bihar, has instructed officials to modernize equip- ment for production of seeds of all crops grown there in order to bridge the gap between demand and supply. He’s instructed officials to strengthen the Bihar State Seed Corporation and modern- ize equipment used for seed production, India’s Outlook newspaper reports. He also advised that special care should be taken while making arrange- ment for stor- age of seeds. He said that storage should have facilities to regulate tempera- ture and moisture so that they could be con- served for two or more years. Sudhir Kumar, Bihar’s princi- pal secretary of agriculture, also requested the beginning of an organic agriculture program in the state, beginning in late 2017. KENYA HYBRID MAIZE SEEDS and the yields they make possible can make a big difference for small-scale farmers in devel- oping economies worldwide, especially those who are at risk of poverty and food insecurity. However, low adoption rates are common, especially in sub- Saharan Africa. A randomized controlled trial in Kenya led by Michael Carter, a professor of agricul- tural and resource econom- ics and director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access at the University of California, Davis, tested whether hybrid maize seeds tailored for western Kenya’s mid- altitude regions could increase yields and income for small-scale farmers. “We found that making those seeds available had a very large impact on maize productivity,” Carter said. “So there really was something in those seeds that was different.” In western Kenya, hybrid maize adoption rates hover around 40 per cent. One reason may be the cost. Hybrid seeds must be pur- chased each year, while local or traditional varieties can be saved from the last harvest. A hybrid crop’s second genera- tion of seeds produces plants that are smaller than the hybrid parent line. They also don’t uniformly contain the characteristics of the two origi- nal parent lines.